


The End and the Beginning

by 35-leukothea (35_leukothea)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, and i don't know what happened at the end don't look at me, doesn't exactly go that way but whatever, it's like low-key angst though, iwaizumi is determined to keep this as chill as possible, iwaoi - Freeform, not real angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 18:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4635477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35_leukothea/pseuds/35-leukothea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iwaizumi's moving out tomorrow and Oikawa is decidedly not ready.</p><p>「終わりと始まり。」</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End and the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> read on tumblr [here](http://35-leukothea.tumblr.com/post/127366234002/hello-kids-its-been-a-while-sincerest-apologies).

“So,” said Oikawa, trying too hard to be conversational. “I guess this is it.”

He and Iwaizumi were sitting across from each other at a table at a diner, two drinks and no food in between them. It was nearly seven p.m., but neither of them were hungry. Iwaizumi had ordered a coffee that had long since gone cold, and Oikawa had managed to get a chocolate milk off the kids’ menu by flirting with the waitress, an act that he seemed less comfortable with than usual.

Iwaizumi gave him a repulsed look. “‘ _It_ ’?” he repeated harshly. “What, you plan on dying sometime soon? Croaking before you realize you peaked early and have nothing left to live for?”

Oikawa stirred his milk with his straw, unconcerned. “You’re one to talk, Iwa-chan,” he replied pleasantly, “since we both know your appalling attitude is going to kill you by the time you’re thirty.”

“Yeah, if you don’t first.”

He tried to kick Iwaizumi’s shin under the table, but only succeeded in stubbing his toe on the chair leg.

“Poor aim,” Iwaizumi snickered. “You were never great at footwork. Too lanky.”

“Excuse you, I have a weak knee.”

“Oh, play the victim, why don’t you.”

“Victim!” Oikawa exclaimed, slamming a hand down on the table and rattling the silverware. “I  _am_  the victim! I am the victim of a weak knee and a stubbed toe and Iwa-chan’s completely unnecessary harassment!”

Iwaizumi’s dark eyelashes fluttered in a feeble attempt to conceal the roll of his eyes. “All of which you brought upon yourself.”

“Hmph.” Oikawa leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, pouting. “You’re heartless.”

“And you’re melodramatic, and I’ve kind of given up hoping you’ll grow out of it.”

Oikawa huffed and frowned into his chocolate milk, his expression eventually relaxing into a blank, vacant stare. Neither of them said anything for several dragging minutes, until finally Iwaizumi decided that his friend had detached from reality long enough.

“Oi,” he said sharply. “Snap out of it.”

Oikawa glanced up quickly, blinking. “Huh?”

“You’re sulking. Stop.”

“Am not!” he protested.

“Are, too,” Iwaizumi insisted. Someone else in this situation might’ve lost their patience and gotten angry with Oikawa for acting like a child, but not Iwaizumi—instead, he settled for insults. “C’mon, you idiot, this isn’t the end of the world. Don’t work yourself into a rut.”

“I’m not working myself into a rut.”

“Okay, now you’re contradicting everything I say just to contradict it.”

“No, I’m n—” He stopped mid-sentence and scowled. Iwaizumi bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling, but Oikawa still noticed.

“Iwa-chan, you’re laughing at me.”

He rubbed at his mouth, turning away slightly. “I’m not.”

“You’re laughing at me!” Oikawa reached out and snatched Iwaizumi’s hand away from his face, gripping his fingers hard. “See? You look happy, and the only time you look happy is when you’re being mean.”

“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “Like I would ever laugh at your pain.”

Oikawa just slouched in his seat again, decidedly done with the joke. His tight hold on Iwaizumi’s hand loosened and his arm dropped back onto the table, but he didn’t let go. He had reverted right back to moping.

Iwaizumi sighed quietly. “Oikawa, what’s wrong?”

“Ha, ha.”

“I mean it. This shouldn’t be making you miserable.”

“Frankly, I think I’ve got a right to be miserable right now. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Just…” He hesitated, fully aware that he could say nothing actually useful. “Don’t be? Just go back to being obnoxious and overly nonchalant. I hate when you display real human emotion.”

Oikawa smiled a little at this, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “And why’s that?”

Iwaizumi shrugged and glanced away. “Makes me feel like a bad friend.”

For a very empty split-second, Oikawa seemed at a loss for words. “Really?”

“Well, yeah. Considering that you only act this way when you’re upset.”

“Well, you’re not. You’re a great friend. Hajime.“

Iwaizumi winced and, almost involuntarily, jerked his hand away from Oikawa’s. “Don’t do that,” he muttered, too sharply. “I mean—sorry, I didn’t—I—ugh…”

“It’s okay,” Oikawa said, false lightness in his voice. “Are you ready to leave?”

They stared at each other for a heartbeat.

“The diner, I mean,” he added hastily.

“Yeah,” said Iwaizumi. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

The train ride back was uncomfortable and Iwaizumi hated every minute of it.

Once Oikawa was in one of his moods, it was damn near impossible to get him out, and this time was no different. He spent most of the ride twisted around in his seat to look out the window, as if he could see anything through the glare on the glass, and said nothing. Iwaizumi sort of wanted to smack him. In the loving way. If such a thing were possible. He supposed there was a way to find out, but this was probably not the occasion for it. And certainly not on the train.

Iwaizumi sighed heavily. “Well, I did headbutt him once,” he mumbled to himself.

“Hm? Did you say something, Iwa-chan?”

He pursed his lips. “I’m trying to think of the best way to knock you out of your doldrums. Preferably in the literal sense.”

Oikawa stuck his tongue out at him, then turned back to the window. They fell quiet, and Iwaizumi tried not to think about how lousy he was at this. Whatever  _this_  was.

Their stop came after what felt like centuries. Iwaizumi jumped out of his seat and practically ran for the door, ignoring Oikawa’s cries of protest.

“Iwa-chan, wait up! Do you want me to injure myself again?!”

The answer was no, but he just wanted to get off the train, get out of the discomfort and unease and get back to familiar territory. If there were such a thing anymore. This entire situation was a mess and there was a part of Iwaizumi, too, that wanted to deny it was happening—he and Oikawa had practically never been apart before, not to mention that he could barely remember a time when they hadn’t known each other.

(Also the fact that Iwaizumi was slightly in love with him, but that was irrelevant.)

“Iwa- _chan_!”

Oikawa grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the flood of people trying to get on and off the trains. “Now who’s the spacey one?” he teased. “Come on, let’s not stand in literally everyone’s way.”

They left the station wordlessly, Oikawa clinging to Iwaizumi’s arm, which he suspected was more for Oikawa’s own comfort than anything. He always had been a very touchy person, but recently, Iwaizumi had gotten a lot better at tolerating it. Oikawa had noticed, too, damn him—a few times he had even asked if Iwaizumi was beginning to, after however many years, finally enjoy his blatant and often embarrassing displays of affection, which of  _course_  he was not, and don’t get your hopes up,  _kusokawa_. Oikawa usually laughed at him then, though neither of them were in the laughing mood at present.

They walked a bit south of ten minutes before they reached the spot where they usually parted ways, by a little corner store that closed early on Tuesdays and sold weird Western candy. Iwaizumi stopped a little suddenly, almost against his own accord, and Oikawa looked down at him with a frown. Iwaizumi abruptly realized how close they were standing and took a step away.

“Well, uh…” He cleared his throat, then threw a glance in the direction he’d be heading. “This…um…”  _Fuck._

Oikawa stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders a little, in a manner so unusual and so  _not Oikawa_  that he barely looked like himself. Was he anxious about something? Why was he trying to seem smaller? Iwaizumi was so absorbed in this newfound enigma that it took him several seconds to realize he was being spoken to.

“What?” he said dimly, blinking. “You’re talking to the ground.”

Oikawa lifted his chin but still didn’t make eye contact. He scuffed the sole of his shoe against the pavement a few times—nervous habit. “I don’t really want to go home.”

For a moment, Iwaizumi just stared at him, perplexed. “Yeah,” he agreed finally, because he had nothing better to say. “Me neither. That’d be a shitty end to a shitty night.”

Oikawa smiled, but it was fleeting. “I thought you were the one who said this wasn’t the end of the world.”

“Well, yeah, but you’ve gone and turned it into a bigger issue than it needs to be, as per usual.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re an overreactor. ’Cept we already knew that.” 

“Don’t be rude, Iwa-chan. Want to go to the park?”

He shrugged, figuring the matter was neither here nor there. “Okay.”

This slight turn of events seemed to have Oikawa feeling a bit more like his normal self, which was both good and bad, depending on how you looked at it. Iwaizumi was glad nonetheless. The evening was turning a little chilly now that the sun was almost down, but it was pleasant, a welcome relief after a late summer day of heat. Cicadas droned in the trees, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Iwaizumi regretted that he would probably be covered in mosquito bites come morning and distractedly wished he’d brought a jacket.  _Oh, well. Too late now._

The park was mostly empty when they got there; parents called their kids in earlier and earlier as the days got shorter, so there weren’t any young children out after dark. There were a couple of middle schoolers chatting on top of the monkey bars, and a girl Iwaizumi vaguely recognized was playing fetch with her dog on the soccer pitch, but other than that, the place was quiet. He hadn’t been here in a while, he realized. It made him feel kind of old.

“Hey, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa poked him in the ribs when he didn’t respond instantly. “Iwa-cha—”

“Wha—hey, stop that!” Iwaizumi slapped his hand away. “ _What?_ ”

“Remember that time I almost broke my nose ’cause you pushed me off that slide?” He pointed.

Iwaizumi made a small  _tch_  noise. “This is not the time for a walk down memory lane, idiot,” he said reproachfully.

Oikawa ignored this. “Let’s go over there,” he suggested, gesturing specifically at the entire other end of the park, then grabbed Iwaizumi by the elbow and dragged him along. He stopped occasionally to spout nostalgic nonsense about their childhood, but Iwaizumi powered through it, unaffected.

“Ooh, and remember—?”

“No,” he interrupted at once, “I don’t remember. I reject your sentimentality. You’re making this worse.”

“I can’t help it!” Oikawa cried, sounding beleaguered.

“What do you mean, you can’t help it? It’s your fault for bringing us here in the first place.”

“ _Iwa-chaaaan_ ,” he whined, tugging at the other’s arm. “Lighten up!”

Iwaizumi just looked up at him and sighed. It would probably never cease to amaze him how quickly and unpredictably this guy’s personality could do a complete 180. “What are we doing here, Oikawa?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Oikawa said defensively. “I just didn’t want to go home witho—” He stopped.

There was a pause. Iwaizumi raised his eyebrows. 

“Without what?” he asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

Oikawa swallowed, hard, and stared determinedly a tree. “Without feeling like I’d accomplished something.”

“Acco— _what_  are you talking about?” Iwaizumi spluttered, bewildered. “What does that even mean?”

He shrugged. “Don’t wanna end on a low note.”

Iwaizumi considered himself an extremely tolerant person when it came to Oikawa. There were countless other people who simply could not handle him, even if they’d known him nearly as long as Iwaizumi had. Some people thought he was intimidating; others thought he was crazy. He was both and neither of those things, but above all, he was tactless. He was ambitious to the point of being self-centered. He was shortsighted, and said a lot of things he didn’t think through, though Iwaizumi could usually forgive those. This time, however, he was angry—inexplicably, unspeakably angry. He could deal with the teasing and the bad jokes and the shameless flirting, but the fact that Oikawa suddenly had the nerve to consider any moment of their time spent together a  _low note_ , a waste, a mistake? That was going too far. Iwaizumi grabbed Oikawa’s shoulders and forced him to turn around and face him.

“I already  _told_  you, Oikawa,” he spat, seething, “nothing is  _ending_! When are you gonna get that through your thick skull, huh? You think this is some milestone, some landmark in our lives, just because we’re doing what all normal people do after grade school? You think we’re the first pair of kids to have to go through this? Today’s just another  _day_ , you dumbass! Another ordinary day, and we’ll have plenty others like it, so don’t you dare assume otherwise! You don’t  _need_  to ‘accomplish’ anything. I feel like you don’t know how to live without a million short-term goals to meet, like your every waking hour is spent trying to achieve something. Can’t you just give it a rest? Is this not  _enough_?”

Oikawa was frozen in place, his brown eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. He looked terrified. Iwaizumi almost felt sorry for him, but some part of him could not pardon what Oikawa had said so easily this time. He felt bad for losing his temper, but he would not dig for an excuse for his friend’s thoughtlessness. He took a deep breath then, and let his hands fall to his sides. When he spoke again, he felt less angry.

“You don’t need to  _perform_  for me, Oikawa,” he said, quietly but firmly. “I like you best when you’re  _you_.”

Oikawa said nothing; his jaw was clenched shut. It seemed like he was keeping himself from running away or doing something equally stupid with great difficulty, so Iwaizumi reached out and took his hand.

“Sorry for going off on you,” he said sincerely, “but that was kind of a douchey thing to say.” Then he laughed awkwardly and added, only half joking, “This is what I mean by overworking yourself.”

There was a moment of silence. Finally, Oikawa spoke.

“Did I really hurt your feelings?” he asked shakily. “I didn’t even...”

“Didn’t even realize you were saying something insensitive?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, Hajime.”

The use of his given name bothered Iwaizumi less this time. “Well, just don’t do it again,” he said, trying not to sound too sharp or too lax, “or else I’d have to—I dunno, do something drastic—”

“Like what?”

“Like—like...well, I don’t know.” He huffed. “What’s it to you,  _kusokawa_?”

“Well, seeing as I’m the one who’d have the drastic something being done to him, I have a reason to be curious.”

Suddenly, Iwaizumi got a horrible idea. It was such a bad idea. He had no clue where it came from—it just  _occurred_  to him out of nowhere, insanely tempting and 100% ready to ruin his life. He wanted to die a little bit thinking about just how bad of an idea it was. But somewhere deep inside him, some tiny, irrational, masochistic, stupidly overwhelming part of his brain wanted him to try it.

Oikawa was frowning at him. “Iwa-chan? Is something wrong?”

His brain took up a wrestling match with itself: he tried to say no, then yes, then shook his head, figured  _what the hell_ , and kissed Oikawa.

If his mind had been too chaotic only a moment before, it was now almost completely blank, save for a vague, disjointed jumble of thoughts like  _I’m fucked_ and _this is pretty nice_ and _people are probably staring_.

It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime, maybe two. It wasn’t until Iwaizumi drew back, ever so slightly, that he realized one of Oikawa’s hands was in his hair, and that both his own were clutching at Oikawa’s jacket. He felt very strange; it was a bizarre mix of confusion and contentedness and several other emotions he didn’t recognize.

Oikawa was smirking, but his eyes looked all too fond of what he saw in front of him. “Oh, please, Iwa-chan,” he murmured. “If that’s your definition of ‘drastic,’ I’m afraid you’ll have to get a bit more creative.”

Iwaizumi didn’t respond. He was too shocked at himself.

Oikawa detached himself from Iwaizumi, still smirking. Why was he doing that? It was getting on his nerves. “Well, maybe today was a milestone after all,” he said casually. “I was beginning to think that I’d have to do all the sappy stuff myself, you know.”

“Sappy stuff? You mean you...” Iwaizumi stopped, realization dawning. Oikawa was grinning at him, far too amused.

“ _Oikawa Tooru you absolute_ —”

 

* * *

 

“Eugh, they’re kissing again.”

“Ooh, really?” Yomi nearly fell off the bars again in her haste to turn around again. For some reason she was excited about this newest development in the love lives of these two complete strangers whose figures she could barely make out in the blue-black darkness.

“Yomi, don’t stare!” snapped Ayuka, sounding mortified. 

“What? It’s not like they can see us from here. And besides”—she gave a breathy laugh—“they’re preoccupied.”

“It’s still rude,” Ayu mumbled.

“You sound like my mom. At least they’re not shouting anymore.” Then she cringed. “Ouch.”

“What?”

“That dog just got hit in the face with the frisbee.”

“Poor thing.”

“Do dogs have good night vision?”

“Honestly, Yomi, I have no idea. There’s lamplight, isn’t there?”

“Suppose so.”

For a minute or so, neither of them spoke. The cicadas hummed, the dog barked happily, and a few cars made their way down the road. They’d have to be going home soon, Yomi knew. But not just yet. She shifted again, throwing one leg to the other side of the monkey bars so she could lie down and look at the sky. The sky was not nearly as nice here as it was in the country, but that couldn’t be helped. 

That was something she missed, but there was never a doubt in her mind that this place was better.

“Would you ever kiss a girl, Ayu?”

She didn’t have to see it to know that Ayuka had that look on her face, the  _I know my answer but I’m pretending to think about it_ expression. Ayu made decisions quickly and stuck with them, something Yomi admired.

“I guess so,” she admitted after a moment, but it didn’t really sound like a guess. “Why? Would you?”

Yomi shrugged. “That wouldn’t even matter. I’d just have to be friends with them, you know? Really good friends. And then it might happen.”

Another pause. Comfortable. Easy.

“Do you know where you’re going to high school, Yomi?” Ayuka asked.

“Nah.” She waved her hand dismissively. “That’s two years from now, anyway.”

“We’ll go together, though, won’t we?”

“Of course. My grandma’s the biggest sap, you know, when we were moving and Kota was sad about leaving his friends, she kept telling him that your loved ones always come back to you no matter what because it’s Love with a capital L and all that, but I think she just says that because her cat ran away once for half a year then came back even after she moved houses.”

“That’s pretty impressive, actually.”

“Yeah, I agree. You ready to go?”

Ayuka nodded and jumped to the ground; Yomi swung down after her.

“Hey, Ayu,” she said. “Race to the corner store?”

Ayuka grinned, her dark eyes glinting in the sparse electric light. “You’re on, Nakamura.”

They took off running.

**Author's Note:**

> it's a metaphor


End file.
